Boom!

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BOOM!

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In the Goldberg family’s cramped trailer on the West Bank, Karen listened to the steady bang-bang outside, loving how her new, unfinished house, or rather the plastic partitions that blocked her view, sparkled in the sun.

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Itzik the contractor waved an Arab driving a crane to deposit a hundred cinderblocks on the roof.?

Each day after that brought a rainstorm, a bomb scare, or government building freeze. The Arabs couldn't work, and construction slowed to a stop.

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One day, two weeks before Passover, Karen watched her five-year-old borrow a hand truck from the Arabs to jack up a toy tractor.

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Rain started to fall in thick drops.?An Arab electrician pulled down one of the plastic partitions and spread it over his head, built a small fire and set out his coffee pot.

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Next day came a bomb scare and lightning flashed at the edge of the settlement. Through an empty space in the plastic, six rows of rusted stilts clearly held up Karen’s new house on a foundation of broken rocks and rotted planks. It must have supported building projects from the first Temple era and would keep doing it until Moshiach came, unless it collapsed from terrorism or lack of faith and funds.

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The roof wobbled in the wind.?Two kids, her neighbor's and hers, played excitedly in the rain, in crashing vicinity of the cinderblocks on the roof. They focused on a garden hose attached to a pipe, wedged between two rocks, filling empty Coca-Cola bottles with water. Then Karen saw the Arab's bag bulging with suspicious odd-shaped angular objects.?The rain began to fall in sheets.

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Karen pushed the door with her elbow, avoiding the ?dough on her hands, stepped out, and yelled, in English, "Get away from there!”

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She tried it in Hebrew and got only blank stares from the children.

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The women turned. Karen pointed up to the cinderblocks. ?No reaction. She pointed to the ground and said, "Boom!” at the exact moment when thunder struck.?

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One woman rushed out in the rain to her son and pulled him home with a smack, not bothering to pick up the yarmulke. Karen’s son followed them, and then thought better and ran back for the soda bottle. Karen dashed after him and stopped short of hitting him. The boy’s clothes and hair would glob together ?from the dough on her hands.?Before Passover she would have to wash everything, and they didn’t have a machine; it was still on the boat.?

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Back in the trailer, Karen scrubbed her hands, hurried her son in and out of the shower, picked up the phone, and suddenly understood she had nobody to call.

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Instead, she knocked on Itzik’s door.

He said don’t worry, he’s keeping an eye on the house.?He could not pull down the cinderblocks because he had no workers. Yes, theoretically a police dog could sniff the bag, but in real life the police don’t come to the territories. Don't worry! An explosive will make the dust fly, that's all.

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Karen returned to her trailer. In New Jersey, child welfare would arrive with the fire chief, the building inspector, the bomb squad, and labor enforcement. They would arrest the mother for hitting and fine the contractor for negligence, and the Arab for whatever he did, and seal off the danger zone, and send a detective, just to start.

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On the other hand, the neighborhood children would have no place to play. Thank G-d that did not happen. On the other hand, with no one to finish the house, the furniture shipment sat outside with the cats, dogs, and children. Going out of Egypt must have felt like that too.